


i shoulda been a better son

by avosettas



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Pre series, Religious Conflict, Religious Guilt, [projects years of uncertainty re: religion onto my fave]
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:47:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25478656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avosettas/pseuds/avosettas
Summary: Jamie’s been telling people he would be a priest from the time he learned he could be one.
Relationships: Jamie MacDonald & Malcolm Tucker
Kudos: 6





	i shoulda been a better son

**Author's Note:**

> undefined relationship, probably pre series. 
> 
> aka i project my angst from my emotionally abusive atheist dad who hated the fact that i went to hebrew school onto jamie, who is my favorite character and doesn't strike me as the most religious despite apparently having gone to seminary. 
> 
> sorry if mangled scots.

Jamie’s been telling people he would be a priest from the time he learned he could be one. 

His mam’s always been behind it: “You can do whatever you want, James,” she would tell him, winding a scarf around his neck before sending him and his sisters off to Sunday school. “It’s a good job, a priest. Helping people…” 

Dad, not so much. “No sendin’ ye tae school tae preach aboot _fairytales_.” 

“That’s blasphemy, da.” And his dad would just snort and tell him that his mam’s crazy. 

~

“Do you believe in God, Jamie?” Malcolm asks him one night. He’s pushed aside the papers he’s dragged with him to Jamie’s flat, and if Jamie didn’t know that he’d been up since four in the morning he’d have thought him pished. 

“The fuck kinda question’s that?” Jamie replies. “Dragged me outta fuckin’ seminary, didnae ye?” 

~

“Have they given ye a silly little hat, so folk take ye seriously?” His dad snorts. He’s so drunk that Jamie’s amazed he can sit up straight. “Every religion. Silly hats.” 

“We donnae wear hats, da.” Every holiday. 

“Does God hear ye better if ye wear a hat like that?” 

“Donnae know, do I?” Jamie sighs. 

“Donnae they fucking teach ye anything a’ that school?” His dad shakes his head. “Tell ye, Jamie, anyone can fuckin’ preach, but it takes a fucking special cunt to think that a man in the sky is controlling us.” 

“God disnae fuckin’ control people,” Jamie finds himself explaining for the hundredth time. 

His dad is too pished to listen. Too busy ranting about how God would have stopped this and that and the other fucking thing if He existed.

~

“Disnae mean ye fuckin’ believe in God,” Malcolm retorts. “Mam goes to church every Sunday but she disnae know if she b’lieves, aye?” 

“Aye,” Jamie says wearily. Malcolm looks exhausted, leaning across the coffee table in front of him. They always said Malcolm dragged Jamie out of the seminary, but the truth of it was that Jamie had already been out of the seminary. Malcolm had just dragged him off the street and kept him from becoming a fucking rent boy. 

Instead of answering he just turns the question back on Malcolm: “Do ye?” 

“Donnae think so.” He raises a bushy eyebrow: _And you?_

Jamie slumps back against the couch. His ass hurts from sitting on the floor for so long. “Left the fuckin’ seminary because I wasnae sure,” he says after a few minutes. Then he gets up, leaving Malcolm on the floor, and grabs the pack of fags and the lighter he’d left on his nightstand this morning. 

He walks back out past Malcolm and outside to sit on the threshold. Malcolm sits beside him, crowding him in the door. “Semarian who disnae believe in the big man, heh.” 

“Fuck off.” Jamie grunts. “Go hae a sleep on the couch.” 

He feels rather than sees Malcolm get up, hears the couch creaking as his cunt friend settles down on it. 

Then he chainsmokes three fags and uses the smoke to cloud the already smogged out stars. It helps him forget that he ever thought that there was anything looking after him up there.


End file.
